Annihilation (Southern Reach, #1)

by Jeff VanderMeer

The tower, which was not supposed to be there, plunges into the earth in a place just before the black pine forest begins to give way to swamp and then the reeds and wind-gnarled trees of the marsh flats.

Have you ever fallen into a tunnel and discovered it was actually a tower? I had that experience in a magical, surreal place called Sintra, in Portugal—because Sintra includes a tower buried in the ground. When I think back, it’s that tower-tunnel that tripped a wire in my brain and combined with my favorite hike in North Florida to create ANNIHILATION. Our brains have to make story out of such moments to help understand them. The same way that my brain turned a dolphin I saw in a freshwater canal at the St. Marks Wildlife Refuge into an otter at first… because how could it be a dolphin? And, then, of course, my subconscious went one better and gave it a human eye for the book.